Saturday 6th September, Y Garn, North Wales

Today I am working for Discover Adventure with Bex's on a two day expedition training course for team members leaving for Chile, Everest Base Camp, New Zealand and Kilimanjaro later this year.


With extensive flooding across the UK and many folks having difficulties travelling to our venue in north Wales this was going to be a testing weekend for clients and kit. The wet weather however did provide the perfect conditions for me to test a new waterproof camera I had just bought a few days earlier.


Our original plan for day 1 was to ascend Y Garn by its eastern ridge from the car park in the Ogwen valley and make a traverse of the Glyders, however we also have developed plans B, C, D and E in case conditions were even worse than expect.

We set off towards the ridge through wind and horizontal rain, the low cloud gave poor visibility and its was not possible to see our route up the mountain. When we reached the plateau at the top of the ridge the wind speed was well over 45mph and walking was difficult for most members of the team. Although we were less than 10m below the summit we decided that it was too dangerous to continue and retreated down the ridge.











The windy picture was courtesey of Joy, who was being held firmly down by another team member whilst she took the picture.

Since by now we were all soaking wet the group made a circuit of Llyn Idwal to get a few more miles into their legs. A number of the streams in Devils Kitchen area were interesting to cross and the teams had the opportunity to practice river crossings and scrambling up waterfalls.








Despite the weather we all had lots of fun and the clients gained a good understanding about the performance of their kit and personal fitness in poor conditions. Hopefully lthe weather on expedition will be much kinder.